


Club Grind

by fourfreedoms



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: AU: other careers, FLUFFY PORN?, Fluff, M/M, and porn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-15
Updated: 2013-08-15
Packaged: 2017-12-23 13:45:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,226
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/927204
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fourfreedoms/pseuds/fourfreedoms
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Johnny and Patrick keep running into each other in clubs and making out. They've clearly got low-impulse control.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Club Grind

**Author's Note:**

  * For [The Horrible Countess Von Boobs](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=The+Horrible+Countess+Von+Boobs).



> All Countess Von Boob's fault. I'm sure you're not surprised. She wanted fic where Johnny and Kaner would keep running into each other in clubs while that one song from Cascada was playing and randomly making out and thus their relationship was born. It was too much work to set this whole thing in 2007 and I also kind of hate that Cascada song, but I did love the rest of the premise, (that or she jedi-mindtricked me) so this is what you get. 
> 
> I don't know what this fic is. It went somewhere else. It's not my fault. It's also unbeta'd, because I have five other fics I need to be working on instead and I just wanted this one done, oh lord. 
> 
> The song lyrics quoted are Hardwell & Dyro's "Never Say Goodbye," Jaymes Young's "Darkstar," Avicii's "Wake Me Up," and Tiesto's "Take Me Home" respectively.

_You'll never fly, if you're too scared of the height_

He sees him for the first time when he’s already drunk off about ten shots of Four Roses, _and_ the Vodka Redbulls that randoms keep buying him, _and_ three hours of drinking his way through a case of Miller Lites. He’s not entirely certain if the dude is hot or if it’s the alcohol improvement clause at work--but either way, after too many years playing organized sports, Patrick has been Stockholmed into digging jocks, and unless whiskey is making up this guy’s biceps and trim waist, he totally fits the bill. 

Hardwell & Dyro’s comically over-dramatic club standard about saying goodbye is playing and as Kaner contemplates how to best approach him, he loses him in the crowd completely. It’s shitty, Patrick could use a hookup and nobody has caught his eye in far too long, but it’s also the way these things go, so he lets it lie. He’s just settled into the mindset that he’ll find him or he won’t--only to physically run into him when a drunk girl starts hipster dancing like it’s Lollapalooza and not a packed night at Berlin. 

“Whoa,” Patrick says, using the guy’s beautiful fucking arms that are totally testing the limits of his Titleist t-shirt to keep himself on his feet. 

“Uh,” the guy says and that’s when Patrick kisses him, because you know what, this is why people get wasted off of ten shots of Four Roses and why they agree to drink the dumbass Vodka Redbulls people shove into their hands like they’re supposed to be grateful. 

Patrick’s good at this, even if laying one on the unsuspecting is not really his speed, but he’s still surprised when the guy kisses him back, hands coming up to frame Patrick’s face so that he can tilt it to the exact angle to tongue-fuck him best. 

Patrick is down with this. Drunk-goggles or no, this guy’s pecs are something else beneath Patrick’s wandering palms, and he’s willing to bet the guy has a pretty dick. He seems like the type--smooth golden skin and an adorable shit-eating grin, at least what Patrick got from the flaring lights. If he doesn’t have a pretty dick, it just won’t make sense. 

Suddenly the guy pulls away. “Sorry, sorry,” he says, like Patrick wasn’t the one who assaulted him in the middle of the dance floor. He looks somewhere over his shoulder, and then smiles awkwardly. 

“Sorry,” he says again and disappears into the crush of bodies. 

Patrick doesn’t see him again for the rest of the night. 

_If I told you where I’ve been, would you still call me baby? If I told you everything would you call me crazy?_

Patrick’s buying a pitcher of Tequila lemonade at Roscoe’s when he sees the guy from Berlin again. It hasn’t gotten terribly busy at Roscoe’s yet, odd for a Saturday in summer, but that’s fine. He’s totally okay with it if it’s just him and his friends on the dancefloor. 

At first Patrick doesn’t really think it’s the actual guy. He’s been fantasizing about that kiss for nearly a week and imagining the guy everywhere--on the L, on Lakeshore where he goes for his morning run, at work--everywhere. But he realizes at the exact moment when Dark Star comes on and everybody floods the dancefloor, and the guy appears right in his field of vision as Patrick’s letting his friend Melanie grind up against his front, that Patrick has definitely not imagined him this time. Dear god, and those were not drunk goggles at all. The guy is probably even hotter than he remembered him, tall and dark-eyed with long sooty lashes and a strangely sweet expression on a too serious face. 

The guy stares him down and when he realizes he’s got Patrick’s attention, he smiles, just the barest quirk of his lips, before disappearing again. What the hell is that? Is Patrick supposed to follow him? This is not really how he works. If people can’t be straightforward, he’s got no time for that. And yet, Patrick finds himself giving his excuses to Melanie and chasing after the dude anyway. 

Dark Star runs for nearly seven minutes, and by the time Patrick’s found him out on the patio, it’s still playing, albeit muted through the glass doors. 

The guy opens his mouth like he’s going to say something, but Patrick doesn’t let him finish. Their last kiss got royally interrupted, and unless this dude is about to tell him to fuck off, he doesn’t need to hear it. When Patrick tugs his head down for a kiss, he comes easily enough. 

The guy tastes good, of course he fucking tastes good. He tastes exactly like Patrick would want him to taste and his mouth is soft crush against Patrick’s, tongue sliding slowly along Patrick’s lower lip in a way that makes him shiver. 

“Jesus,” Patrick says, pulling back, but he can’t help leaning in to press another kiss to the corner of the guy’s mouth and then down to the exposed expanse of his throat. The skin is baby-soft and blood-hot underneath his mouth and Patrick bets it’s flaring up with a really good flush right now. 

“What’s your name?” the guy asks, breathlessly, palming Patrick’s ass with a possessive hand. He doesn’t let Patrick answer though, turning his face into Patrick’s to catch him up in another filthy wet kiss. 

It lasts forever, and when forever comes to a close with the guy’s fingertips running along the bare skin under his shirt and just above the line of his boxers, Patrick’s hard and thinking of how best to demand this guy come home with him right now, even though it’s barely 9 PM on Thursday and the night’s just started. Unfortunately, at that moment the door to the patio slams open and this frantic asshole rushes out. Well, he might not be an asshole, but Patrick really fucking doesn’t care. He’s a cockblocker at the very least. 

“Johnny,” he says, “you have to come right now. Biscuit’s lost his wallet. His social was in there! We’ve got to find it.” 

“Who keeps their fucking social in their wallet?” the guy, apparently named Johnny, says, hands still at Patrick’s waist. “Fuck.” 

The other guy looks back and forth between them, clearly feeling bad about breaking up their moment, but obviously not enough to let them keep having it. Patrick gets it--if they can find that wallet from whatever fuckhead made off with it, this Biscuit-character’s life will be a lot easier. 

“Go,” Patrick says, holding in a sigh, “I’m not going anywhere. I’ll be on the dancefloor.” 

Johnny smiles at him and says, “I’ll find you,” before taking off after his friend. 

Well. Because this is Patrick’s life. That doesn’t happen. He keeps his friends at Roscoe’s, hoping that Johnny will turn up, long after they all want to move on. Eventually, he gives in and lets them tow him off to Hydrate with the promise of about thirty drinks to console him. 

_I tried carrying the weight of the world, but I only have two hands..._

Fortune smiles in Patrick’s favor only two days later when he’s back at Hydrate for Adam’s going away party and a drink turns up at his elbow. He’s expecting another fucking Vodka Redbull, because that is just Patrick’s life, but he’s pleasantly surprised when he finds an amber liquid in a generous shot glass and an apologetic-looking Johnny leaning with his back to the bar. He’s wearing a henley and an old pair of jeans and he’s obviously not the flashy queen who would run around with his shirt off, but Patrick kind of wishes he was. He didn’t get much of a sense of those abs, not enough time during that makeout at Roscoe’s, but he would bet half his monthly paycheck they’re pretty spectacular. 

“What is it?” he asks, picking the glass up and peering at it. Better not be rum. Who wants two-fingers worth of rum? Nobody who actually drinks, that’s who. 

“Maker’s,” Johnny says with a shrug, “seemed like a good guess.” 

Patrick smiles. “It was.” 

The new song by Avicii is playing and after downing the shot in one smooth motion, he propels Johnny onto the dancefloor. Johnny may be a worse dancer than he is, but they muddle through it, and eventually Johnny backs him into a corner, moving in close to kiss him hard and deep. 

Patrick can’t help the high moan that makes its way out of his throat, especially when Johnny shifts against him, and he can feel the beginnings of a hardon pressed to his belly. 

He really needs to figure out how to stop kissing him back so he can just ask Johnny to come home with him already. They can be that obnoxious couple making out under the bright lights of the L pressed up against fifteen other bodies with a soundtrack from somebody’s Beats headphones. Patrick is totally down for that even though he doesn’t know the first thing about Johnny after his name. Johnny can’t even say that much and oddly Patrick finds he’s completely unbothered by this notion if Johnny keeps kissing his throat along the muscle that runs up into his jaw. 

They don’t make it home. They don’t even make it out of Hydrate. Ordinarily Patrick’s not the type to use up a perfectly respectable bathroom when somebody else needs to pee. But, there’s Johnny, his beautiful biceps, and the fact that he apparently doesn’t mind sitting on top of the closed toilet seat, sucking Patrick’s best objections out through his dick. 

“Too old to do this on my knees,” he’d explained, before kicking the lid down and tugging Patrick in close. 

He’s a fucking pro at cock-sucking, totally A+. When he gets Patrick’s fly open, he flicks his tongue right along the slit, laughing at the rush of precome, and then drags his lips down the underside to the base and back up again to the tip, before even taking Patrick inside his mouth. Every part of Patrick goes molten-hot and Johnny has to steady him at the thigh to make sure he doesn’t pitch over. 

“Easy there,” Johnny says, looking up at him from under his lashes, his lips glistening from where he’s licked them. 

Patrick has to bite at his fist to keep from moaning tragically and embarrassingly loud. 

Johnny works Patrick with both hands, twisting them gently in opposing directions, while he laves attention on the head of Patrick’s cock. Usually Patrick can’t come just from a blowjob, and certainly not after only a few minutes, but before he really even knows what’s happening Johnny’s nudging in closer, taking one of Patrick’s balls into his mouth and jerking him off hard and fast, and that’s all she wrote. 

“I am going to come all over your fucking face,” he says as a warning. 

Johnny smiles up at him and then swallows him down, taking him deep, letting Patrick slide across the roof of his mouth and to the back of his throat. He shoots like that, being deep-throated in Hydrate’s fucking bathroom while poor schmucks just want to piss wait desperately outside. 

Johnny swallows it all down, throat working around him. He pulls off with a sucking pop and leans over, reaching toward the sink, turning the tap on with his elbow and then cupping his hand under the faucet so he can swallow some water. The movement’s economical and precise, and watching Johnny drink out of his own palm is so hot he could probably go again, given enough motivation. 

“I still don’t know your name,” Johnny says, voice flavored by the classic just-sucked-a-dick rasp. 

“Patrick,” he says, staring down at Johnny, wondering how disgusting and cheap would it be to just sit on Johnny’s dick right here in this bathroom and fuck his brains out. 

But there’s a routine to these things by now and that’s exactly when management starts pounding on the bathroom door saying, “there’s a camera in there, my darlings, if you think I won’t post what you just did to the internet, you better get your heinis out and find a better place to do your thing.” 

They scramble out of the bathroom--Patrick rushing to straighten himself up, Johnny doing his best to adjust his erection in his pants--and are greeted to clapping on the other side of the door and an amused but exasperated bartender. 

“What I wouldn’t do to see that video,” one patron says, leering at them both. 

The bartender laughs. “There’s no camera in there, you gullible little dears, that would be illegal.” 

Patrick has to laugh and Johnny looks mortified, but if that’s the worst they’re suffering for that truly amazing bathroom encounter, Patrick will take it. The night is still young. Patrick still owes Johnny an orgasm, and he is still totally down for making out on the L in front of everybody while they ride it back to his place. 

Which is when reality comes crashing in on them. Melanie finds him as he’s heading towards the door and remembers exactly why he’s out at Hydrate for the second time in three nights. It’s still his friend Adam’s going away party. He’s moving to Cambodia to work for an NGO and Patrick probably won’t see him for two whole years. Patrick loves him, he’s a good friend who won’t abandon his buddy just to make out with a hot jock he keeps running into. There are lines. He is not going to be able to french Johnny on the L for the entire world to see for several hours at least. 

“If I promise I’m good for it, do you promise not to run off?” Patrick asks him, reaching out to catch Johnny’s hand in his. 

Johnny grins, presses their foreheads together, and says, “It’s cool, I trust you to follow through.” 

Patrick hopes that Johnny is actually cool and won’t turn out to be a nutso Log Cabin Republican or a jackoff who loves to work out but actually hates sports, because he really wants to sit on his dick at some point in the near future, and that would totally ruin the endeavor altogether. 

“What are you thinking about?” Johnny asks him, as they walk along behind the rest of Patrick’s friends. 

“What do you do?” Patrick blurts out, staring at Johnny’s henley and sinfully tight jeans and coming up with exactly no idea what it could be. “I mean, for a living?”

“I’m a sign language interpreter,” he says, hands shoved in his pockets. 

“Wait, really?”

Johnny laughs. “Yes, really,” he says, making a sign with his right hand and then tapping his lip with his index finger and drawing it away from his mouth to point outwards, before dropping his hand again. 

Patrick’s bowled over by the same longing he felt when he watched Johnny bring the water to his mouth. Why oh, why is Adam leaving for fucking Cambodia? Couldn’t he pick another day? Another party? “I...wow,” is all Patrick manages. “You know I’m just going to ask you to tell me how to say things in sign all night?” 

Johnny knocks their shoulders together, like they’ve known each other forever. “I could just start swearing at you violently. I know ASL, LSF, and LSQ. That’s a lot of swearing.” 

Patrick blinks at him - that probably means something to a sign language interpreter, but for his part, he’s got absolutely no clue. 

“What do _you_ do?” Johnny asks. 

They’re lagging behind the rest of Patrick’s friends who are heading towards Little Jim’s, because Adam must play pinball on his last night in the old US of A. Sharpy actually turns around to shout at them to hurry up, but it’s fond, if unnecessary. They’ll get there when they fucking well get there. 

“Hold the fuck on!” Patrick yells back before saying to a bemused Johnny. “I work for the Trib.” 

Johnny narrows his eyes at him. Patrick wonders idly if Johnny thinks he’s lying. It’s not as if journalism is a burgeoning field and he knows he’s young. But then he realizes, watching Johnny’s eyes widen in dawning recognition that holy christ, Johnny might’ve actually read something he’s written. That he might actually read sports journalism--such a gift from on high is almost too much to contemplate. 

“You need to stop with your hate on of football.” Johnny tells him, “You want to eliminate the offsides rule and make the field smaller to increase scoring? And yet, you’re a hockey fan?” 

“It was an idea!” Patrick cries, staunchly ignoring Johnny’s snotty refusal to call it soccer. “To drum up a little popularity for MLS.” 

He spends the next few minutes grilling Johnny on sports. What’s his favorite hockey team? _Avalanche_ \- of course, turns out the fucker is Canadian and grew up worshiping Joe Sakic and cursing mightily, probably in French, that the Nordiques ever left Quebec. Favorite baseball team - _White Sox just by proximity_ \- But what about the Blue Jays? _What about them?_ Not to mention he unequivocally worships some no-name french soccer team called En Avant de Guingamp (seriously, what?), which he delivers in a flawless French accent. Because, duh, Johnny really does speak French. Patrick realizes now that LSF and LSQ must be some form of French sign. He also has no interest in basketball, which is just criminal. He doesn’t even know who Hakeem Olajuwon is and, when it comes up, he thinks Eli Manning is overrated. 

“How did we even get on the subject of the Giants?” Johnny asks, beleaguered. 

“You have terrible opinions!” Patrick replies. “Like, really terrible! How do I still find you hot? Eli Manning is not overrated, you jerk.” 

“Oh, okay, you’ve convinced me,” Johnny says, rolling his eyes, but he turns it into a smile and drags Patrick in by his belt loops to kiss him right there on the street. 

“Pinball, you fuckers!” Sharpy shouts from up the street, interrupting them. “Makeouts later!” 

“Who is that guy anyway?” Johnny asks. 

“Patrick #1,” Sharpy calls back, having overheard them, before ducking inside Little Jim’s and disappearing. 

Patrick shrugs at Johnny. “You can now say you’ve had the distinct pleasure of meeting the other Patrick, Patrick Sharp. Keep your hands on your wallet.” 

Jonathan looks amused rather than disturbed

Johnny is not a pinball wizard. But he thinks he is. Or he is determined to become one in the next twenty minutes by rematching Sharpy every time he loses. Sharpy and Adam are undisputed pinball kings, so that’s a losing battle. Nevertheless, it takes him far too long to realize what everybody else knows already knows - Jonathan Toews sucks at pinball. He makes up for it though by being super good natured as everybody asks him to sign out their names.

Eventually Adam has enough of Little Jim’s and they can finally go to Berlin, which is Patrick’s favorite, but doubly so, because it’s always where they end the night, which means after this he is free to take Johnny home and debauch him. 

“Do you come to Boys Town often?” Patrick asks him, as they flash their ID to get inside. Johnny’s license picture is goofier than his he’s proud to notice. 

“No, not often,” he says, leveling Patrick with a look once they’re through the doors and Patrick realizes he must have been coming back on purpose, just to find him again. He knows he’s blushing uncontrollably and he can’t help dropping his eyes. 

_Waiting for the light to change from red, thinking over all the things you said to me..._

They’re really bad about not making out on the dancefloor. Typically this is not a behavior that Patrick condones. If he wants to suck face with somebody, he can take them home. He’s a grown up. He’s got his own place. He doesn’t need to hang out on dancefloors bumping into people and awkwardly making them party to his hookup. But something about the song and the sweep of Johnny’s dark lashes against his cheek as he closes his eyes to block out Patrick’s terrible dancing, makes it next to impossible to stop himself from leaning up to press their mouths together. He doesn’t even like Tiesto. 

Johnny doesn’t taste of come - he tastes of good bourbon and cinnamon from the hot damn shots Adam bought everybody. It would probably be gross if he did, but Patrick still marvels that this mouth was on his dick, barely two hours ago. They’ve quit dancing, just standing still, kissing like teenagers, arms tight around each other, while people move about them like they aren’t there. Patrick’s a little drunk and a little out of it, but it’s like being pleasantly buzzed in a car on the highway with the windows down - a bit like floating almost, everything going all soft at the edges. 

Eventually Adam taps him on the shoulder, jabbing him in the gut when he actually moves away from Johnny. Patrick must look a wreck, he’s got half a chub, and Johnny looks no better, but Adam still grabs him up in a fierce hug. 

“I’m releasing you, you asshole, so you can go have sex now behind closed doors,” he says into Patrick’s neck.

“I’ll miss you,” Patrick says back, unable to keep himself from tearing up a little. Adam is really going away and it’s for a long time. It’s stupid that this hits home for real only now. “Don’t kill any orphans okay?” 

“Of course not, Peeks,” he says and then thumps Patrick hard on the back as he pulls away. They suck at goodbyes, but besides, he knows that Adam will probably be Skyping him five-hundred times a day, bored out of his mind, in the middle of nowhere, Cambodia. When he’s not disabling landmines that is or whatever it is he’s agreed to do out there. 

Adam shakes hands with Johnny and makes some weird flailing motion with his arm that Patrick realizes is his attempt at the sign Johnny showed them for ‘see you later.’ Johnny somehow manages to look charmed and also completely unimpressed at the same time. This is a skill that Patrick would like to master in the newsroom for every single time he gets a shitty assignment from an editor. There are limits to how many Chicago Fire games he will agree to attend after all, but maybe if he had Johnny with him... 

As soon as Adam melts off into the crowd, joining the knot of the rest of Patrick’s friends still dancing and drinking near the rear bar, Patrick turns back to Johnny. “My place?”

“Yeah,” Johnny replies, somewhat hoarse.

Even by cab, it seems to take forever to get home. Patrick draws the line at fooling around in the backseat. After all, if you’re going out to a place like Berlin, you’re basically accepting that you’re going to see twinks dry humping all over the place. Cab drivers have not consented to this same bargain. Johnny must’ve come to a similar conclusion and he keeps his hands well to himself until they’re through Patrick’s front door. 

By then though, all bets are off. The last several hours have just been one long tease, looking at Johnny, smelling him, touching his beautiful expressive hands, watching those beautiful expressive hands sign and also utterly fail at pinball. Also, he hasn’t forgotten what he owes. 

“So, I’ve been dreaming about sitting on your dick all night,” Patrick says while they’re frantically stripping off clothes in Patrick’s bedroom. He has to stop to take Johnny’s body in, the smooth planes of his back, the strong lines of his thigh, and the proud jut of his yes, Patrick guessed it, totally pretty dick. “Uh, but, if you’ve got other plans?” 

Johnny’s eyes darken and he bites at his lower lip before replying, “I don’t have other plans.” 

Patrick rushes through the prep, opening himself up on the bed with his feet flat to the covers, with Johnny at his side, leisurely making out with him, barely touching him at all. He seems pretty content to follow Patrick’s lead, which from the blowjob performance, Patrick was not altogether expecting. 

That said, he does slow Patrick’s hand down as he moves his fingers in and out of his ass, after he hisses from how indelicate he’s being. He knows he can take it, but something about Johnny exerting that subtle measure of control lights him up. 

“Easy,” he says, tugging on Patrick’s wrist to gentle his pace. “I’m not going anywhere.” 

Patrick laughs breathlessly. “I want you inside me, man, who says that has anything to do with you?” 

It’s a sign of good things that Johnny takes this comment with humor. He nips Patrick’s ear and then at his collarbone in clear admonishment, before connecting their mouths again. All the making out is really awesome, but he’s also got plans for tonight. 

He pulls his three fingers free of his hole with a sigh and with militaristic precision rolls a condom on Johnny before he really knows what’s happened. 

Watching his eyes drop closed as Patrick squeezes the base of his dick once the condom is all the way on is probably one of the top five moments of the night. Patrick climbs astride, guiding Johnny into his body with more eagerness than finesse, but the slow exhalation that Johnny makes as Patrick slides all the way down on him is pure perfection. Johnny reaches for his hips, thumbs dipping into cut of his pelvic muscles and pushing just enough to tell him that Johnny could set the pace if he wanted, but for now this is Patrick’s show. 

He starts a slow rhythm, because he doesn’t want to absolutely kill his thighs, and this is perfect, the measured drag of Johnny’s cock inside of him. But that doesn’t last very long. Soon he’s fucking himself on Johnny’s cock, palms braced on Johnny’s chest, crying out every time he bottoms out. He’s figured out just the right angle to hit his prostate and is totally using Johnny like he’s some toy to get it exactly as he wants it. 

When he says as much, Johnny moans, fingers tightening on his hips. “Touch yourself then,” he says, sounding totally wrecked. 

Patrick can’t draw it out much longer after that, and when he comes, clenching around Johnny and shuddering, emptying himself out all over Johnny’s washboard stomach, Johnny actually stills beneath him, without even taking a breath. 

“Oh god,” Patrick breathes, knowing that the fingers on the hand he’s still got braced on Johnny’s chest are digging unmercifully into Johnny’s skin. 

“You good?” Johnny whispers. 

“Yeah, yeah, I’m good,” Patrick replies, brokenly. It almost hurts to look at Johnny he’s so freakin’ attractive like this, biting at his lip for control, clearly right at the edge himself. 

“Good,” Johnny repeats and then rolls them over in a motion so smooth they stay connected. 

He starts fucking Patrick in earnest then, all that pent-up energy coming out in smoothly controlled and yet vicious thrusts that push embarrassing choked noises out of Patrick’s throat. He doesn’t last very long--Patrick can understand--he’s been waiting to get off for hours now, but just before he comes, he says Patrick’s name, a soft susurration of sound that Patrick doesn’t even recognize for what it is at first. He wishes for the first time in his whole life that condoms could be dispensed with, because he’d like to feel it, the rush of Johnny’s come inside him and the mess of it, seeping out afterwards. 

They lay like that, tangled together, before Johnny groans and carefully pulls out. They’re both sweaty and disgusting, and now smeared in Patrick’s jizz from where it got all over Johnny’s belly. 

“I’m really impressed that you didn’t have whiskey dick,” Patrick tells him as an afterthought, already starting to drift off, even though he really should shower or at least brush his teeth. Patrick doesn’t suffer from the condition himself, but he’s had more than enough disappointments to know it could’ve been a real possibility. 

Johnny chuckles. “You didn’t notice? I stopped drinking after that horrible Hot Damn shot.” 

If Patrick weren’t exhausted and incoherent, he would tell Johnny that he glad he’s not the only one who had a plan for this night, because clearly Johnny was thinking ahead. But he is, in fact, too tired and so he lets himself drift off, hoping Johnny will get that he’s invited to stay the night. In fact, he’s invited to stay forever. 

*

He’s really terrified when he wakes up in the middle of his empty bed, with the sun blazing in through the windows, that Johnny has left him after all. He never did manage to say anything that would’ve encouraged such an action. It wouldn’t be the end of the world, he supposes, if Johnny had left. It’s just, he really likes Johnny. He’s got factually wrong opinions on Eli Manning and he’s Canadian and refers to the wrong sport as football--but Johnny also loves hockey and in a town that hasn’t seen a cup since ‘61, this is a rare and beautiful thing. He smells so good and he knows how to touch Patrick just right, and best of all, he really makes Patrick laugh. 

So basically he’s really hoping if Johnny abandoned him in the middle of the night, that at least maybe he left his phone number behind. 

But it turns out he doesn’t have to worry, because a few moments later, his bedroom door creaks open and Johnny pads carefully back into the room, clad only in his boxers and armed with two cups of coffee. 

“Hope you don’t mind,” he says softly, handing over one of the cups. No milk and a lot of sugar, just like Patrick takes it. Johnny’s 2 for 2, so far. “I didn’t want to wake you. Usually I can sleep forever, but man, you were out.”

“What time is it?” Patrick asks, reaching out to set the cup on the nightstand, but still unwilling to move. Johnny snorts at him and takes the cup, setting it down for him. Patrick repays him by arching his back off the bed in a lazy stretch that draws Johnny’s eye. He fights to reign in a grin and mostly loses. 

“It’s 2 PM,” Johnny says with a laugh for his antics. He holds up a book that he must’ve got off of one of Patrick’s shelves - Eco’s _In The Name of the Rose_. “I’ve been reading for the last couple of hours.” 

Patrick should probably say something, like “can we be dating now?” or even “I’ve got tickets to see the Blackhawk’s lose terribly against the Wild and there’s nobody I’d rather watch it with.” But he’s shit at declaratory statements and they’ve gotten pretty far with him just laying one on Johnny, so he takes the book from Johnny, tosses it to the foot of the bed and rolls over on top of him, pressing him into the mattress and kissing him slow and deep.

If he doesn’t get it, well. Patrick’s game to keep trying.

**Author's Note:**

> ALSO, there was an actual conference, NAY, A SUMMIT, about what Johnny's profession should be - possible ideas were actuary, landscape architect, physical therapist, nurse, and offhand, as a joke, I threw sign language interpreter out there. I happen to know some sign, so it wasn't totally random. What I didn't expect is to think, wow, that's kind of perfect. LSF and LSQ are not mutually intelligible, so if somebody like Johnny knew both, along with ASL, he could be potentially very valuable to the deaf community. 
> 
> Maybe some day I will write the further adventures of journalist Patrick Kane and interpreter Johnny, and I will actually come up with a reason as to WHY Jonathan Toews chose to learn three different sign languages.


End file.
